A potpourri of photography and words about Nature, social issues, and anything else that crosses my path during the day.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Theme Tursday - Remnants and Replicas

I live by the ocean, but I don't have any live fish for you. Winter is just the wrong season for fish to expose themselves. I even went down to King's Park the other day to try to find Starfish in the rocky pools, but no luck. So I present to you the next best thing - the remains (or in one case the remains of an egg) of fish, and artistic renderings of fish. Enjoy!

I found this fish remnant up on Ruggles Ave. in September of '07. It's far from any water; I don't know if it fell out of a fisherman's truck or if an Osprey dropped it flying from one spot to another, but there it was. I call this shot Bones and Scales.

A Skate egg, also called a Mermaid's Purse. These things are always found among the seaweed tossed up on the beaches in the area. I found this one on Easton's Beach yesterday.

A medieval-style fish on a tile created by my friend Mirjana Mladinov way back in the 1980s. She used to have a decorated tile business here in Newport way back then, and this design is actually a single-tiled version of the "big fish" she used in a wall installation of the Jonah story.

The Chinese had a similar view of fish. This is a roof decoration on the Chinese Tea House on the grounds of the Marble House, one of Newport's famed Bellevue Ave. mansions. The Cliff Walk actually passes under the Tea House in a tunnel.

Another tile by Mirjana. Obviously, this is her rendering of the symbol for the astrological sign Pisces. Since I'm a Pisces, she gave this to me for my birthday way back when.

The sign for Scales & Shells, a very good seafood restaurant on Thames St. in Newport.

And finally, a gate onto the Cliff Walk in Newport. This gate is part of the property of a house that was built within the last 5 years. Very Mediterranean, white stucco with the terra-cotta tiled roof, and style-wise a house you would find anywhere from Spain to Sicily. The iron-work fences on the property are decorated with a Greek frieze, and the gate adds this very unique fish design.

...very cool. I always wondered what those things were on the beach...on top of that, I had never heard of a skate either (looked it up, so now I know!). I love your friend's art, especially the pisces tile. I'm a pisces too, so I'm always attracted to fish...great post!

great selection of photos....i'm quite drawn to the first one as I love taking photos of dead and decaying things....go figure....I actually forgot to mine my cache of dead fish photos for today's theme!!

hummmm I wonder how death would fly as a theme for the tt followers??????

Roy,DO you know how I can contact Mirjana? I have a set of her biblical subject tiles that I made into a table, bought in Newport RI in the 1980s. They are beautiful and I would love to find out is she is still producing them and selling. I most appreciate your help in advance. Thanks, Peter (pnedwards@aol.com)

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Daily Quote

There was something formless and perfectbefore the universe was born.It is serene. Empty.Solitary. Unchanging.Infinite. Eternally present.It is the mother of the universe.For lack of a better name,I call it the Tao.

It flows through all things,inside and outside, and returnsto the origin of all things.

The Tao is great.The universe is great.Earth is great.Man is great.These are the four great powers.